Does Snowden deserve the Nobel Peace Prize? - Page 16

Svallfors also believes this will help the Peace Prize regain some of respect it lost after prematurely awarding Barack Obama the award in 2009.

On July 17 2013 11:09 Shiori wrote:

Oh I don't deny that some things would be lost: a stockpile of (mostly male) people of good physical fitness who have good discipline, know how to obey a command, and know lots about killing people; the feeling that my tax dollars fund, on some level, organized killing, which tends to incidentally include civilians; and (hopefully) the depressing tendency to label soldiers as uniquely heroic* (as if Afghanistan were Normandy Beach) when there are tonnes of doctors, surgeons, teachers, scientists, judges actually positively contributing to the well-being of people on a day-to-day basis who receive nominal to modest praise upon their death.

*I don't deny that there are heroic soldiers, or that soldiers can do good things (both sides of my family have members who were at some point soldiers,and obviously I don't think they're bad people or anything less than good people). I'd say that the vast majority of soldiers are normal and good people, and that many of them have the best of intentions and truly love their country and/or their mission. I do deny that being in the military makes one a hero (regardless of death) in any automatic sense (the reason I state this is because the government renamed a major highway the "Highway of Heroes" since all fallen soldiers are escorted up it in funerary proceedings) and certainly not simply because they were killed doing something as a member of the armed forces. Dying for a cause shows resolve, but to be a hero, to me, means doing something noble or good in addition to being incredible/difficult. In that respect, I consider a firefighter who rushes to save someone from a burning building on the verge of collapse, despite indications of poisonous gas, to be far more worthy of the title of "hero" than a hypothetical soldier who was tragically shot during a firefight with insurgents in a random street. The latter is certainly very sad and definitely something to be mourned, but I think heroism is about deeds, not about tragedy. The firefighter is a hero whether he dies of poisoning or not; the soldier is venerated for death simply because the military is viewed by some as some literal, pure element of a nation more so than anyone else.

I understand the tendency to venerate the dead is very human and tends to concentrate around service professions that involve some kind of risk (police etc.). That's fine with me, but it seems to only be soldiers that are elevated so high in death, and that only soldiers are considered heroic not only by rgw people close to them, but also by people they've never met, and even by the government itself in such a systematic way that I feel is unmatched.

On July 17 2013 13:45 cLAN.Anax wrote:
He deserves a prison cell. Snowden signed up knowing he'd have to keep silent about the sensitive secrets he would be entrusted with. How is this not treasonous sabotage? He deserves punishment, not recognition.



Bahahaha. The Nobel Prize reputation would only plummet farther.

On July 17 2013 13:45 cLAN.Anax wrote:
He deserves a prison cell. Snowden signed up knowing he'd have to keep silent about the sensitive secrets he would be entrusted with. How is this not treasonous sabotage? He deserves punishment, not recognition.



Bahahaha. The Nobel Prize reputation would only plummet farther.

On July 17 2013 13:36 Befree wrote:
He just seems like a paranoid narcissist who without much thinking ahead decided he wanted to become some hero and reveal the dirty secrets of the U.S. government, but then afterwards he seems to think he can have all the praise and heroic status that comes with his martyring and "whistleblowing," but not suffer any punishments?

Though I must say he is an absolutely marvelous symbol for the modern-day, smug generation of lazy, unthinking political dissidents. He just about perfectly exemplifies all the negative aspects which I feel characterize many of you out there.

On July 17 2013 13:45 cLAN.Anax wrote:
He deserves a prison cell. Snowden signed up knowing he'd have to keep silent about the sensitive secrets he would be entrusted with. How is this not treasonous sabotage? He deserves punishment, not recognition.

On July 17 2013 13:45 cLAN.Anax wrote:
He deserves a prison cell. Snowden signed up knowing he'd have to keep silent about the sensitive secrets he would be entrusted with. How is this not treasonous sabotage? He deserves punishment, not recognition.



Bahahaha. The Nobel Prize reputation would only plummet farther.

On July 17 2013 13:36 Befree wrote:
Granting the assumption of significance and meaning to the Nobel Peace Prize (questionable assumption), no, I absolutely do not think Edward Snowden deserves the Nobel Peace Prize. I find it impossible to even begin to imagine by what criterion he could be considered.

I am troubled by the great naivety that I feel would be required to consider his actions heroic. Those on that side seem completely foolish to me. Ignorant, naive, whiny, narrow-minded, shortsighted, feeble-minded, paranoid, and self-righteous are all adjectives which I feel encapsulate how I feel about this side. Reading that poll and reading the replies disappoints me greatly. I honestly feel very frustrated with many of you. I believe your thought process to be terrible and your conclusions to be ridiculous. I think it is the anti-establishment for the sake of anti-establishment (I feel this is a fundamental aspect of your mind-set) which bothers me the most. I feel as if you make up for your ignorance and lack of solutions by constantly attacking and constantly complaining. I think it is very easy to just complain and to point out flaws in systems, and that this is taken advantage of and taken to an extreme often. I often find your complaints to be irreconcilable with reality. Imaginary, simplistic, unattainable worlds and systems which are used to refute our actual world and systems. To me this seems incredibly unproductive and is just a lazy method by which some person can make themselves feel as if they are smarter than others.

But perhaps from your perspective, I'm just a gullible fool who was brainwashed to follow leadership and lash out at those who dispute the status quo. Of course I don't believe your perspective is at all correct, but I recognize its potential existence.

Perhaps this seemed like an odd response, but I'm trying to work on expressing my feelings better than saying things like "you're a fucking idiot" or "fuck you" or "you don't know anything" or "I hate you." And instead I'm at least trying to give a more descriptive and useful explanation of my feelings so that you can see where my heads at, though I do realize that this probably does not make my message any less antagonistic or abrasive.

To expand a little upon my viewpoints of this particular situation... I do not support Snowden's actions. I don't think they were at all an ideal method for fixing this perceived error. There exist other channels through which he could have done this which wouldn't have caused so much unnecessary controversy. I'm also bothered by his succeeding actions. Primarily his coming out interview. Preceding that interview, there was very little focus on the leaker aspect, and mostly all the media attention was on the actual issue of the NSA surveillance. Then he decides to give out his name and location? Why? Could he not foresee the complete shift in focus that would occur from the surveillance program to a sensationalized story of a man on the run from a government? What did he gain by coming out exactly?

And then he continues this by making even more drama out of it. As well as his and Greenwald's claims of Snowden's vast knowledge of secrets. He supposedly knows so much and he puts himself at a risk of being captured by any rivals of his own country which he is supposedly trying to protect? Who is this helping? It just seems as if even if you were to somehow accept that it was great for him to do what he did in the first place, why does this figure who seems to be viewed as a martyr by some do all these things after? Everything seems completely focused on him.

He just seems like a paranoid narcissist who without much thinking ahead decided he wanted to become some hero and reveal the dirty secrets of the U.S. government, but then afterwards he seems to think he can have all the praise and heroic status that comes with his martyring and "whistleblowing," but not suffer any punishments?

Though I must say he is an absolutely marvelous symbol for the modern-day, smug generation of lazy, unthinking political dissidents. He just about perfectly exemplifies all the negative aspects which I feel characterize many of you out there.

On July 17 2013 16:02 LegalLord wrote:

Whenever I agree to an oath of secrecy, I always know exactly what those sensitive secrets are and who they might harm.

Also, I don't think that's true. A lot of information seems to suggest that he intended to leak from the very start. Either way, the only thing he deserves is a prison cell.

On July 17 2013 16:02 LegalLord wrote:
Whenever I agree to an oath of secrecy, I always know exactly what those sensitive secrets are and who they might harm.

On July 17 2013 04:15 packrat386 wrote:


Given that the US military doesn't have authority in the country its not the best comparison, but besides that, I think there is a big difference. There is a good argument to be made that the information that the NSA and our other intelligence agencies gather is worth the slight invasion of privacy. AS Plansix said somewhere earlier, you probably ought to be more worried about microsoft employees "monitoring" your skype calls than the NSA.

On July 17 2013 15:15 giesecke wrote:
he doenst deserve it.

i personally think, it is good that he made that thing public, but it is not an act that deserves this prize (or what this prize should mean).
but since the commitee for this prize is stupid he probably has a good shot at winning it.

On July 17 2013 11:13 Xahhk wrote:
Obama got one for being Mr. Drone Mcgee. A McDonalds McGriddle prep cook deserves one at this point.